What do you get if you cross a duck and a cat?

A duck filled fattypuss! Ahah ha, I crack myself up. But seriously, Duck Billed Platypus (platypusses, platypi, whatever), they're cool and I've seen one. Add to that the Echidna I saw a few days back and I've chalked up two of the worlds five monotremes (that's egg laying mammals to you normal people), now to find the other three...

Echidna, like a hedgehog on a really bad hair day.

Anyway enough of my prodigious wildlife spotting abilities. Seasons greetings from Penneshaw on Kangaroo Island, or as I have come to know it 'Corrugation Island', due to the state of the unpaved roads. Talk about turn your bones to jelly...

A funny thing happened to me on the way to the island... There I was waiting for the ferry at Cape Jervis when I got talking to a bunch of people that had just arrived on a Cagiva and another Yamaha. Thoroughly bloody nice bunch, and to cut a long story short I ended up spending xmas day at their place on Kangaroo Island. Nice bunch this biking lot eh?

On the ferry across the 'backstairs passage'

Kangaroo Island has just the one paved road, which runs in a continuous loop around the island taking in most of the major attractions. It's somewhat like a kangaroo based Jurassic Park. All the tour buses are practically on rails, dropping off hoards of people at all the notable points, only to swallow them up again an hour or so later. Needless to say I didn't spend a lot of time on said road, choosing the more jarring experience of the extensive network of gravel, rock and sand roads. Much more interesting, and a good old learning experience to boot.

Anyone would think I knew what I was doing...good job you can't see my expression

Ended up in some great secluded locations, mainly on the coast (hence the plethora of beach-based photos). I also spent quite a bit of time in the Flinders Chase National Park, where I went hunting for the elusive Duck Billed Platypus, amongst other wild creatures. From my time in the park and on the island in general, I have been able to learn three valuable things about the wildlife here:

1) The young of the Echidna are called 'Puggles' which, quite frankly is bloody fantastic.

2) Your average Duck Billed Platypus will surface for slightly less time than it takes for a Sony digital camera to switch on, zoom in and focus. Which is rather infuriating, and led to many 'Nessie!' style blurry photos of said beastie.

3) The isolation of living on this island has driven all the Kangaroos to suicide, and they will attempt to end their lives as often as possible in front of a moving vehicle. Usually when you least expect it and conveniently timed to cause maximum swearing.

Look look a platypus! (honest to god, click it for a bigger version)

Best camping spot would have to be West Bay, funnily enough on the far western shores. Marvellously secluded and a fantastic beach to boot, and it takes a lot to impress me when it comes to beaches. Coming a close second is the Cape Gantheaume Wilderness area on the south eastern edge, although the road leading there leaves quite a lot to be desired. I'm sure I have a photo around here somewhere, ah yes...

Good scenery, roads an 'experience'

As for West Bay, check it out:

You can usually count on mother nature for a good show at bedtime

So I'm scheduled to leave tomorrow (30th), and will have to decide where to go from there. After talking it through with a few people and reading up a bit more, I have decided to save the 'Ooodnadatta Track' and the 'Great Central Road' for a bit later on in my trip. Mainly because now (Jan - Mar) is the hottest time of year in the middle, and I mean melt-your-tyres hot, not just "ooh that's a bit warm". That fact combined with Gosling One only being air-cooled (and me too come to think of it), and I have decided to delay that section to the 'shoulder season' when temperatures should be slightly less mechanically destructive.

However, that means I have a bit more time to bimble round the southern regions of Australia before heading west, so I feel a trip to Tasmania coming on. Not only is it VERY south, it'll also mean I'll be biking round every state in Australia. Score!

Now for some pictures (click any of them throughout this post for bigger versions):

Cape Willoughby on Kangaroo Island, windy as a windy thing heralding from a windy land

Another from Cape Willoughby, this time with the interesting view obscured by a helmet

Yours truly, also like a hedgehog on a very bad hair day
(curse this not-cutting-my-hair resolution!)

More updates to come, but for now Happy New Year to all! See you in 2007.

There's a Beyonce in my helmet...

Shame she's not real though. Not much worse than having a tune you don't know the words to stuck in your head while riding a motorbike. Heavens knows why Beyonce was in there... well I'm sure there were a few reasons, but they probably wern't musical.

No pictures this time round as it's just a short one to wish everybody that happens along this blog a very happy festive season. I'm heading down towards 'Kangaroo Island' for xmas and probably new year as well, so it's unlikely I'll be able to do a proper update until after I get back. Will hopefully have some good photos by then though.

Bike is running well, coping with the heat (a mere 38deg yesterday) much better than I. Riding isn't so bad as long as you keep moving, prepare to sweat buckets when it comes to putting up a tent though.

Sand on the tracks, and other such excuses...

My blog updates are a bit like buses, you wait around for ages then a really long wordy one comes along...ok, so they're not like buses at all really.

Finally boarded the 'Indian Pacific' or as I like to refer to it, the 'bottom torture express'. It was functional for the most part but certainly lacking a bit in the comfort and service departments, especially considering that it was mainly aimed at tourists. The food and drink sucked, the toilets broke down on the second morning, but it was definitely an experience! The only saving graces were the people I met aboard and the chance to see the scenery of the Nullarbor Desert from an air-conditioned box.

After two days of awe-inspiringly bad coffee we finally reached Adelaide, where I had to disembark as the 'Overland' service from Adelaide to Melbourne wasn't leaving until the next morning. A day seeing the sites, a night in a backpackers hostel and I was off on another train for twelve hours. Met some more great people aboard the 'Overland' service, which once again relieved the monotony nicely.

Arrived in Melbourne not a moment too soon, as I was about to go stark-raving bonkers and kill everyone aboard in a Nescafe induced frenzy. Melbourne hadn't changed one jot since I last visited, so I won't be writing anything about it. However I cannot stress enough the bizarre atmosphere produced by every store in a high-street of thousands each playing it's own selection of Christmas carols, in temperatures exceeding 36 deg centigrade. My idea of hell.

Jumped on the next train out to Castlemaine (one hour north), where I was finally presented with this:

'Gosling One' (watch Mad Max, you'll understand)

"Fan-bleeding marvellous", I said to myself, as I often do. Time to get on with this adventure malarky. It took about 60 seconds of riding for me to decide I'd packed waaay too much, and would certainly try and get rid of some of it as soon as possible.

Certainly looks the part, but hasn't really got a bloody clue.

So I headed south from Melbourne down towards the 'Great Ocean Road' and the southern coast. A nice ride around the twisty bends of the coastal arteries was a handy introduction back into riding again, however that didn't stop me dropping it once in a car park after misjudging a turn at low speed. (although we'll keep that one to ourselves eh?)

Roads in the Grampians come in 3 flavours: gravel, sand and sand covered gravel

Headed up into the Grampians National Park for my first taste of 'off-road' riding. Certainly an eye opener, but good fun once you get the hang of it. Two more droppages in the sand reinforced my belief that I really REALLY had packed too much. Seriously, this thing weighs a ton. A fact only exacerbated when it is lying on it's side in a pile of gravel and sand. Still, lesson learned!

Plenty of closed roads to choose from in the Grampians, mainly due to fire damage, be nice if they put the closure signs at the start of the road rather than half-way down them though. I also encountered a bunch of Australian bikers out for a tour in the Park, nice fellows, some flashy machines too. I was making a nuisance of myself by parking up in the middle of the track, so they stopped to take the piss out of the England cricket team. Fair enough really I thought.

Spent an interesting couple of nights camping out in the mountains of the Grampians, letting my imagination run-wild about what horrendous beasties could be making all that noise in the middle of the night. I also started one morning (or not started, depending on your point of view) with a flat battery. Could find no reason for it at all, so I just hoped it was a temporary occurrence. I spent the next 45mins puffing and panting my way up and down a couple of hills in an eventually successful attempt to bump-start the bike.

So, not going into too much detail (as this is costing a fortune in internet fees), I now find myself in a town called Mount Gambier. I came here for one reason mainly, which was to look at a long-range fuel tank a fellow had for sale. I had a look, it would do the job, so I bought it. (thanks ma and pa for the early xmas prezzie!) This has upped the fuel range of Gosling 1 quite considerably, and I now have one less thing to worry about when touring in the outback.

I even managed to fit the thing myself, with a few bits of free fuel hose from the local bike shop in Mount Gambier. Honestly, I have evidence:

Step 1: Take standard Yamaha XT600E, and attack with all available tools.

Step 2 : Wonder what the hell you've let yourself in for.

Step 3: Pretend you knew it was all going to turn out fine.

Step 4: Make like a cheesy poser

So that all went well until I discovered that my temporary battery troubles in the Grampians had turned out to be not so temporary after all. After lugging said battery round to the local Yamaha shop it turns out it is indeed at fault, a cracked cell or something similar was the diagnosis. The result is $60 for a new one, and an enforced stop over in Mount Gambier until Tuesday morning, as that is the only time I'll be able to pick up the fully charged new battery.

See that, that's not supposed to be a big hole that isn't.

Wouldn't be so bad if I hadn't exhausted the entertainment capabilities of the town in the first four hours after arrival.

Thomas the tanked up engine...

Edit: OK, slight delay in execution of my plan to depart Perth. Erm...the train was full. Who would've thought? So the below post still applies, it'll just be one sunday later than originally planned.


Just a short update this one as there isn't a lot to write about. Will hopefully be boarding the 'Indian Pacific' service from Perth tomorrow. 2659km and three nights later I will arrive in Adelaide and swap the 'Indian Pacific' for the shorter run of 'The Overland' service, a mere 828km to Melbourne. Bottom numbing stuff!

Once in Melbourne I will finally be united with the bike and I can get on my way and start providing a mobile buffet for all the flies in Australia. Seriously you can't stand still for more than a few seconds without a gaggle of flies making a 'bee-line' (aha!) for your ears, eyes and nose. I think I'll just take to wearing the bike helmet everywhere. Might get a few strange looks down the beach though.

Big brother is probably not watching...

There is now a Google map down on the right hand side under the 'profile' section. Quite neat, you can zoom in and out to see where I am at the moment. Tweaking it gave me a headache so I'm not doing anything else to it. :-D

For those that want to know exactly, I am here: South: 32deg 11'07.3 East 116deg 03'16.4

I'll go outside from time to time and moon the satellites to see how often they update their photos.

Go go gadget cartographer!

Click here for a bigger version

That, dear friends is what we in the business call 'bloody stupid', but I'm doing it anyway. That should hopefully give those that are interested a general outline of the route I shall shortly be embarking on (honest!) The only 'iffy' bits are the Cape York area, which is outlined as the toughest 4x4 track in Australia and involves many, many river crossings, the Gibb River Road and the Great Central Road as the distance between fuel stops may be stretching the bikes capacity somewhat. Still, there's only one way to find out! Of course it's not set in stone and I'm sure there will be alterations to the route as I travel around.

Work here in Perth is rapidly nearing completion and the final items of kit have just arrived in the post.
Gadgets! Gotta love em.

Exhibit A - A handy little GPS system:

Exhibit B - An EPIRB (or PLB)

Hopefully I'll never have to use the EPIRB (Emergency Position-Indicating Radio Beacon), but it's good to be prepared for any eventuality. Plus of course it's another outdoorsie-type gadget, and you can never have enough of those.

I've decided to try and catch the train from Perth over to Melbourne via Adelaide, it'll be an interesting trip and it's only slightly more expensive than getting a direct flight. It does mean sitting in a train for about four days, but if nothing else it can be training (har har) for the buttocks in preparation for spending umpteen months in the saddle. I've also decided not to cut my hair as a scientific and social experiment, nothing to do with laziness honest. It will also answer the question that has been plaguing the minds of scholars everywhere across the globe...How much of a muppet will I look with long hair?

Also on this trip I will probably be addressing these important questions:

How long can you wear one pair of socks before they become self-aware?
Just what does a didgeri do? (aha! I crack myself up)
Just how deep a river can you cross on a motorbike before you float away?
What does a pie-floater taste like?
Is the duck-billed platypus taking the mick? I mean honestly it's a beaver with a prosthetic nose!

I will hopefully NOT be answering any of these questions:
What is it like to float away down a river on a motorbike?
What is it like to share a sleeping bag with any number of bitey and rather toxic insects?
Do crocodiles take good care of their teeth?

Any pressing questions you want answering, feel free to send them in! :-)

Ahh...the things I do for science...

Act two, scene one...

...finds the hero of this tale somewhere else. So instead, I'll have write something...

I've now been back in the UK for well over a month. The wedding was well worth the flight back and I'm glad I was able to make the effort and attend. I've uploaded a few photos from the event, so anyone that was there can take a look at http://www.arseaboutface.com/wedding for some remarkably un-embarrassing images. Had a great time, and met some great people. Hope the rest of your time together is just as much fun Richard and Eoife.

Managed to get myself completely kitted out with motorcycle equipment (see above, very dashing image) while I've been back, so I'll be ready to get on with adventuring as soon as I return to Australia. I'm hopefully due to fly out at the end of August. (Terrorist plots / acts of random paranoia permitting of course)

I even tried to write a few begging letters to see if I could get any kit for free. Unfortunately I've never mastered the art of self-promotion, so my efforts garnered me pretty much squat in the way of free goodies. I did manage to get a good discount from Arai for the helmet though, so kudos to them for stepping up to the plate and helping out.

I customised it a little bit as you can see from the picture above. (it's a cartoon 'Sly-Fox' which I use as an avatar when lurking around the internet. Fascinating eh?!) Other than that I got a couple of polite "oh we've expended our budget for the year" responses, but most people didn't even bother to reply. It just doesn't help not being famous when you're scrounging I suppose. :0)

Other than a very short blast on a bike in New Zealand last year, I've not really ridden a bike since I passed my test! I'm sure it'll all come flooding back though. Just keep the round black rubber things in contact with the ground as much as possible I reckon, what could possibly go wrong?!

Oh, I always do all my reading in full bike gear, it erm...aids the concentration, yes that's it.

Lights will guide you home...

...although in my case I'm also hoping a couple of pilots and a very large aeroplane will be involved as well.


So here I am in Western Australia. Armadale to be precise, just outside the city of Perth. Not a great deal to report as I've been spending most of my time pretending to be a web-designer. Not doing too bad a job too, even if I do say so myself. All this work does have a purpose (what work hasn't?), the fruits of my labour will be one of these:
Which I will then proceed to take on a grand and frankly rather insane expedition around this:

It will certainly make my blog entries a little more interesting once I'm on my way, so make sure you all check back on a regular basis! :0)

A couple of people have asked why exactly I'm taking a vehicle that clearly has two wheels missing, around a very bloody big country. I'll erm.....let you know once I figure that one out myself.

First things first though, a flight back to the UK for the wedding and a handy chance to pick up some nice European riding kit. Hooray for shopping!

Burn baby burn...

Melbourne certainly takes the cake for innocent yet surprisingly destructive 'art' installations. Every day at 9pm some columns of concrete surrounded by a curtain of water that are embedded along the banks of the Yarra river reveal their true nature. They are in fact, 30ft high flamethrowers which disgorge an impressive pyrotechnics display for no particular reason other than they can. Can't really see the point, although it does make you go 'oooohhh, aaaahhh' the first couple of times.

Innovative way to control the pigeons I reckon.

Flying to Perth tomorrow morning at 6am, which means being at the bus station by 3:30am to enable me to catch the right bus to get me to the airport. Nice!

When all you've got to keep is strong, move along...

Well here I am, finally in Melbourne. Like a somewhat more vertical Christchurch really. Been to the standard touristy type attractions; the museum, the art galleries, the botanic garden etc etc. Big cities are wasted on me, I'm not cut out for appreciating them. Give me a big wide expanse of 'natural' any day. Met some good folks at the 'Urban Central Backpackers', but I'm not sure I'll be able to get used to not living in a van anymore!

Looks like I may have managed to arrange some work over in Perth for a month or so, which will be great! Then I'll hopefully be flying back to the UK for a few weeks. Be nice to catch up with family and friends again!

This could be...

"This could be the very minute, I'm aware I'm alive. All these places feel like home." - Snow Patrol

They do too, feel like home I mean. All these places I've visited, now that it comes time to leave them for another land I realise I felt very comfortable here. So the ticket for Australia is all booked, Christchurch to Melbourne direct; 7am in the morning on sunday mind you, so it'll be early to bed for me tomorrow!

I've put up a gallery of assorted photos from my travels around New Zealand, you can find it at www.arseaboutface.com/nz. Just a brief selection of images, some without captions as I'd already posted my old journal home and couldn't remember where I took the damn things. Plenty more where those came from, but I'll put all those online once I get home and develop a proper website around all this travelling malarky.

Originally I was planning to start my tour around Australia as soon as I arrived in Melbourne, however now I've been re-thinking my plans; mainly due to an old mate of mine getting married in July. (Cheers Richard!) I thought it was very inconsiderate of him to get hitched whilst I was going to be out in the middle of nowhere Oz, and I certainly don't want to miss the only time he'll be getting married! So I'm thinking about working for a month in Melbourne to get the cash for a ticket back to Ireland for the wedding, then flying back afterwards to continue my travels.

We'll see what the job market is like once I arrive in Melbourne. This had better be one hell of a wedding buddy, it's going to be one hell of a commute! :0)

Welcome to "arseaboutface.blogspot.com".

Welcome to "arseaboutface.blogspot.com". This will eventually be a place where I post news and the ocassional photo from my travelling. This is really just a lazy way for me to stay in touch with family and friends, but if anyone else finds this stuff of interest then that's just fine by me.

The general plan was to fly out to New Zealand from the United Kingdom, and then travel slowly home from there for as long as the money and the sanity lasted. New Zealand because it was about as far from home as I could get before you cross the point of no-return and start travelling back again. I'm a bit late in starting this blog as I've been in New Zealand for 12 months now, and am about to start a tour around Australia, but better late than never I suppose!

So I'll post in this blog as and when I can, it'll be in addition to regular (ish) e-mail updates to my family and friends; so apologies to them if they show up here expecting to read new and exciting information.

Current location is: Christchurch, New Zealand